Tuesday, choose day

This Tuesday, 22 states will conduct their Democratic and Republican party primaries simultaneously. Over half of the delegates to the two parties' national conventions -- which officially choose the nominees -- are at stake. Yet contrary to media expectations, it is the Republicans, rather than the Democrats, who appear poised to unite behind a front-runner after 'Super Tuesday'.

Republicans: winner takes all

With John McCain's victory in Florida's January 29 Republican primary, the landscape of the presidential campaign has shifted. The Republican establishment is reluctantly reconciling themselves to McCain -- a popular maverick -- but Democrats are more divided than ever between their two remaining contenders, Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama:

McCain, whose candidacy looked dead in the water just two months ago, continues to pick up influential endorsements: prior to his Florida victory he secured the backing of the state’s popular governor, Charlie Crist, and its powerful junior senator, Mel Martinez -- a former general chairman of the Republican National Committee. Former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who dropped out of the race on January 30, threw his support behind the Arizona senator.
Although McCain continues to suffer from relatively empty campaign coffers, his fundraising efforts have recently surged.
The Republican front-runner now enjoys significant leads in the three largest Super Tuesday states. Moreover, Republican 'winner take all' county voting rules means that securing even a narrow plurality of support will deliver most of a state's convention delegates.

Democrats: Clinton advantages?

The Democrats are in more of a muddle. Clinton and Obama have each won two states with party-sanctioned primaries. Clinton has also sought to claim momentum from her 'victory' in the January 29 Florida primary. However, Florida's poll was unsanctioned by the national party, which has stripped the state of its convention delegates due to a dispute over scheduling and banned the candidates from officially campaigning there. Thus, it will not give her much of a boost.

Although Clinton also enjoys several key advantages heading into Super Tuesday, several factors may conspire to deny her a knockout victory:

The Democrats allocate their delegates proportionally, according to voting percentage and the breadth of a candidate's appeal throughout a state (often county by county). Thus, a candidate who secures just 30% of the popular vote in a state can take a substantial chunk of its available delegates. Indeed, this scenario has already played itself out in Nevada, where Clinton secured 50% support among the state's caucus participants to Obama's 45% -- but the latter candidate took one more delegate on the strength of his wins in rural counties.
Obama has strong campaign organisations in many of the small- to medium-sized states voting next week, such as Missouri and Kansas. This could result in several unexpected victories.
Obama and Clinton are essentially evenly matched in terms of campaign cash available to spend on costly radio and television ads. Following his runaway victory in the January 26 South Carolina primary, the Obama campaign claimed to have received 5 million dollars in internet contributions within 24 hours.
Clinton maintains 15-20 point polling leads in the two largest Super Tuesday states, New York and California, but Obama appears to be slowly making gains. Moreover, state-by-state polling has been notoriously bad this primary season -- pre-New Hampshire polling underestimated Clinton's support by 9-11 points, and South Carolina surveys understated Obama’s backing by an amazing 17 points. It would be rash to discount an upset win by Obama, particularly in California.

Therefore, the Democratic campaign could be drawn out for at another month, until the Texas and Ohio primaries on March 4. Assuming she is able to secure solid margins of victory in New York and California this Tuesday, Clinton should eventually best her younger opponent after a protracted war of attrition. But Obama's campaign has been full of surprises -- and he may be saving his best trick for last.